Snacking between vocations

In 2007, Cardinal Arinze, then-prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, spoke of the importance of maintaining a genuine “hunger” for priests to spur vocations, and that “non-ordained members of the faithful who are assigned some roles in the absence of a priest have to make a special effort to keep up this ‘hunger.'”

In 2012, some of the usual revanchist suspects at the Archdiocese of Cincinnati’s Worship office have decided that a snack in between meals is fine by them:

LAY LEADERS OF PRAYER (participants must be delegated by the pastor)
Saturdays, October 6 and 20 from 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. each day at St. Columban Parish. This two day workshop is designed to train lay people to lead some of the rites of the Church when a priest or deacon is not available (i.e. Liturgy of the Hours, Funeral Vigil, Funeral outside of Mass, Rite of Committal, Liturgy of the Word [with Communion]), and the Rite of Exposition. The workshop forms participants in understanding the nature of liturgical prayer; understanding the order and rubrics of the various rites; and understanding the importance of the role of the assembly at prayer and the role of the lay leader of prayer. Fr. Larry Tensi, Fr. Steve Walter, Ms. Emily Besl, and Ms. Karen Kane are the presenters. $45.00 for both sessions plus optional lunch will be extra. Please email lweber@catholiccincinnati.org for more information and registration or call our office at 513.421.3131×6609.

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3 Responses to “Snacking between vocations”

The scarcity of priests was even more profound when the US was missionary country during the 18th and 19th centuries. They didn’t have to resort to these sorts of tactics back then, although I’m sure the organizers of this will cite VII and our new, enlightened way of understanding lay involvement.
Are we so short permament deacons that they couldn’t be used for this? Or is there just not enough of them to go around? Are permament deacon assignments even centrally managed, or do they just work the parish/cluster they originate from? If so, maybe that practice needs to be looked at so those places in need of a “lay leader of prayer” can instead get a deacon assigned to fill this role. The permament deacons in the AoC should be targeted towards those parish/clusters that are short in these areas, thus freeing up the priests to focus on mass and confessions. We shouldn’t leave it to the laity to do this stuff, especially all these decades after the reinistution of the permament deacon. All these years later, we still can’t figure out what to do with permament deacons; they have Holy Orders, lets put them to good use.

Great point about deacons, CB. It’s also worth noting that these programs always seem to be run by and attract people with an agenda. The leadership team, for instance, includes a would-be priestess, a priest whose most notable achievement is making life hell for Catholics trying to bring adoration to their parishes, and two members of the last regime’s horizontally focused liturgical establishment.